Sir Keir Starmer has the Commons strength to be daring. That means fulfilling hopes he did little to excite

“We ran as a changed Labour party,” declared Sir Keir Starmer on Friday morning, shortly after Rishi Sunak publicly conceded defeat, “and we will govern as a changed Labour party.” He has yet to elucidate what this change might be. But Labour’s leader presented himself as a prime minister ready and able to alter the current alarming state of affairs. Sir Keir did not sweep his party – or the nation – off its feet. But voters handed him a resounding electoral victory. By presenting itself as an improvement without upheaval, Labour was preferred to the alternative of a chaotic and ruinous Conservative administration.

Sir Keir now towers over the British parliament like no politician since Tony Blair. Labour governments only come once in a generation. The party won a landslide, with a 170-plus majority. The victory was built on a collapse in Conservative support. Gone from parliament are some of the biggest Tory names, including 12 cabinet-attending ministers and the former prime minister Liz Truss. Labour deserves the nation’s gratitude for ending a dalliance with cronyism and charlatanry.

An unprecedented storm has caused devastation. Caribbean states need support

The islands that have been hardest hit by Hurricane Beryl will take years to recover. Nine out of 10 homes on Union, which is part of St Vincent and the Grenadines in the eastern Caribbean, were damaged or destroyed on Monday. On Carriacou, which is part of Grenada, hardly any buildings were left unscathed. On Tuesday, the Grenadian prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, described the situation as “almost Armageddon-like”.

The course taken by Beryl meant that Jamaica, which is home to nearly 3 million people, did not receive its full force as had been feared. But houses and roads were flooded, and a woman was killed, taking the overall death toll to at least 10. Barbados and other islands were also damaged.

Previous generations built substantial amounts of local authority housing with gardens. We should learn from their example

To see one of the greatest challenges facing the next prime minister, head down the A13 to Dagenham. Just off the dual carriageway lies something remarkable: the world’s first and arguably still largest public housing estate. Spanning 4 sq miles, Becontree comprised 24,000 homes and housed 120,000 people. Begun just over a century ago as part of Lloyd George’s homes for heroes, it is proof of what a battered, heavily indebted government can do – if it has the drive.

The 1920s and 30s saw one of the greatest building booms in British history. This was the era of train stations advancing over Metroland, of the giant Wythenshawe development in Manchester. Cottage estates such as Becontree are now dismissed as humdrum, but to families escaping the poverty-stricken East End, these modest homes would have marked a golden opportunity. And they came with gardens. As the outgoing local MP, Jon Cruddas, observes, if the Americans had built something as grand in scope and scale as Becontree, “you’d never hear the end of it”.

In a volatile and cynical age, the availability of peaceful regime change by the ballot box cannot be taken for granted

The youngest eligible voters in Thursday’s general election were four years old when David Cameron became prime minister. They have known only Conservative prime ministers since then. This electoral cohort has also grown up in the long shadow of the global financial crisis that struck before they started school. Much of the political turbulence that has tracked their lives so far can be seen as ripples emanating from that economic cataclysm.

The surge in public borrowing and deficit spending required to stabilise the financial system became the pretext for budget austerity under Mr Cameron’s coalition government. The consequent corrosion of public services and withdrawal of economic safety nets fed disillusionment and cultivated resentments that would help tip the scales in favour of Brexit in 2016. The young person who votes for the first time today, and whose future opportunities were curtailed by that referendum, was only 10 when it was held.

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The supreme court’s sweeping ruling is a blow to democracy in the US

The supreme court’s ruling on presidential immunity combines a tectonic constitutional shift and immediate political repercussions to devastating effect. It allows one man to stand above the law. It slows and appears to gut the 2020 election-subversion case against Donald Trump, though it does not necessarily end it. No one believes a trial can be held before November’s election, although court hearings could still offer a detailed airing of the evidence this autumn.

There could hardly have been a better week for Mr Trump, who saw his rival stumble so badly in last Thursday’s debate that Joe Biden faces growing calls to quit four months from election day. Anyone who doubts how consequential a second Trump administration term would be for the United States and the world need only look to the supreme court, now ruled by a conservative supermajority thanks to three Trump-appointed justices.

The climate emergency should have been a more prominent theme during an underwhelming election campaign

For all the many televised encounters between party leaders, one huge subject has largely flown under the radar during this underwhelming election campaign. In 2019, at a time when the Brexit crisis had overwhelmed national politics, Channel 4 nevertheless devoted an entire pre-election debate to the climate emergency. Boris Johnson didn’t turn up. But, sensing the mood of the times, as prime minister he was soon committing to a “green industrial revolution”. Climate action was high-profile and it mattered.

Contrast that with last week’s final leaders’ debate between Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer. None of the questions selected from the audience addressed the environment. Aside from one attempt by Mr Sunak to suggest that Labour’s green plans will lead to higher taxes – feeding into the Conservative party’s wider attack strategy – both leaders focused their energy and political capital elsewhere. It has been much the same throughout the campaign. Economists, industrial leaders and environmental campaigners are united in their desire for more proactive green government. But the politics has become difficult.

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From the Marx Brothers to Albert Camus and Claire Keegan, concise storytelling can get to the heart of the matter

What role do the arts have at a time of political change when little is certain except for a vast spillage of words? One answer is: to be succinct, entertaining and enduringly truthful. Fortunately, this is within easy reach in a wide range of disciplines. Take the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup, which looks more satirically prescient with every passing year.

In 68 sublimely funny minutes, the 1933 comedy portrays two countries spiralling into war via a dirty tricks campaign waged by spies sent from one state to discredit the newly elected puppet president of its philanthrocapitalist neighbour. Even to themselves, everyone involved looks the same, as demonstrated in its famous mirror scene. All any of them really wants is to get rich.

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Sunday’s first round vote puts Marine Le Pen’s radical right within touching distance of power. The priority must now be damage limitation

If Emmanuel Macron still harboured hopes that his decision to gift Marine Le Pen a snap parliamentary election would pay off, they are surely dispelled now. Following humiliation in last month’s European polls, Mr Macron recklessly gambled that historic levels of support for Ms Le Pen’s National Rally party (RN) would melt away once protest voters were confronted with the prospect of a radical right government for the first time in postwar history. So how did that work out?

A high turnout in Sunday’s first round saw RN comfortably win first place with 33.1% of the vote, almost two points up compared with three weeks ago. For context, this is the first time that the party founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen has broken through the 20% barrier in a legislative election. The hastily assembled New Popular Front (NPF), combining the forces of the left, scored 28%. Mr Macron’s centrist Together coalition trailed in at 20.8%, in third place. In an act of hubristic folly, Mr Macron thus appears to have blown up his power base in parliament, transformed himself into the lamest of lame duck presidents, and handed Ms Le Pen’s youthful protege, Jordan Bardella, a decent chance of becoming France’s next prime minister.

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Deep cuts to council budgets have hit teenagers hard. New opportunities to play and socialise would help them to flourish

Ever since the first ones were set up by philanthropists, youth clubs have sought to provide children with experiences not available to them elsewhere. The Waifs’ Rescue Agency and Street Vendors’ Club, which opened in Sunderland in 1902, was one of the pioneers. From its earliest days, competing ideas about what kind of service to offer had to be negotiated. Was the point to rescue and reform young people at risk of getting into trouble? Or to create opportunities for recreation and support for those unlikely to find them otherwise?

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party sees crime prevention as the priority. It has promised a Young Futures programme, modelled on New Labour’s Sure Start, as a way to reduce knife crime. After 14 years in which youth services endured some of the harshest cuts of any public service, and with concerns about young people’s social and emotionalwellbeing running high, any pledge to invest in teenagers is welcome. But the results of a survey by the National Youth Agency are a reminder that, while youth services can play a role in supporting young people at risk from violence, they should not be viewed solely through a criminal justice lens.

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